NEWS
Alake Cautions Against Protest, Canvasses Support to FG Policies
By David Torough, Abuja
Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, has said what the Tinubu needed most from Nigerians was support for the policies already initiated to succeed.
Alake spoke at a Media briefing hosted by the Secretary to Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume.
“Now, we are at the crux of history.
Nigeria must decide whether we need to go on and make progress or not. Howbeit painful in some aspect, we have to decide whether we should let those policies grow into maturity or we regress.“As a society, we must take that decision. We cannot escape it. We cannot make an omelet without breaking the egg.
There is no way you can advance a society economically, socially and politically without re-engineering and restructuring that society and put it on the path of enduring progress.” All the societies that our youths and even elders run to, whether we run there for social succor, economic succour, political sojourn or even mere enjoyment of convenience of a developed society, those societies were not where they are today by fiat or through magical wands. Some generations before now in those societies made the necessary sacrifices when those sacrifices were of course very germane.
“It is the result of those sacrifices made by those societies’ previous generations that you all run to enjoy there.
“We refuse to make our own sacrifices at home so that our today and tomorrow will also be better. But we can only run for a while but we can’t hide as a nation. As a society, the more we run from the reality that is staring us in the face, the more we postpone the doomsday,” he stated.
The Minister said said the nation was fortunate at this point in its history to have a leader like President Bola Tinubu who could “take the bull by the horns and say we must end the years of locust and we must redirect our energy and resources towards instituting enduring legacies”.
“What we need to do as a nation is to allow these economic reforms and the various interventions to mature through the gestation period to reality and Nigeria will never be the same again. Nigeria will never regress, Nigeria will move to a solid economic maturity and history will be kind with this generation for having the resilience,” he stressed.
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Federal Operations Unit Zone C, says it intercepted contrabands with a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N510.92 million between July 15th and September 15th, 2024.The zone covers the six states in the South-South geopolitical zone and the five states in the Southeast geopolitical zone.
This is contained in a statement signed by Jerry Attah, Public Relations Officer, NCS, Zone C, and made available to journalists on Wednesday. According to the statement, Comptroller Michael Ugbagu, NCS, Zone C, gave the statistics while showcasing the seized contraband to relevant regulatory agencies at the Government Warehouse in Edo.Ugbagu said that the zone also recovered the sum of N25.57 million from demand notices raised based on some infractions noticed, making a cumulative sum of N536.49 million recorded within the months under review.“The DPV was derived from our seized goods, which include 49,699 sachets of various brands of tramadol and 3,350 bottles of various cough syrups with codeine without an NAFDAC number.“1,015 sacks of dry donkey meat and skin, 75 jumbo bales of second-hand clothing, 463 cartons of foreign spaghetti, 269 pieces of used pneumatic tires, and 56 cartons of smuggled foreign tomato paste.“More worrisome is the interception of 49,699 sachets of various brands of tramadol and 3,350 bottles of various cough syrups with codeine without NAFDAC registration numbers.”He noted that the cough syrup with codeine and tramadol without NAFDAC registration numbers, if not intercepted, could have had adverse effects on youths.He added that the items were mostly intercepted along the Ewu-Okada/Benin expressways based on credible intelligence. (NAN)
The Forum of Stakeholders of the All Progressive Congress (APC) has decried the deplorable condition of some federal roads in Nigeria. Alhaji Saleh Zazzaga, the North-Central Chairman of the forum, said this in an interaction with newsmen on Wednesday in Jos. Zazzaga described some of the federal roads as ”death traps”, particularly those within the north-central region.
He said that some of the deplorable roads in the region include Jos-Akwanga, Makurdi-Oturkpo-Otukpa, Makurdi-Ankpa, and Jos-Saminaka. Other roads that needed urgent attention, he said, included Suleja-Minna, Ejule-Otukpa, Ganawuri-Manchok, Lokoja-Abuja, Lapai-Agaie-Bida, Birnin-Gwari-Bokani-Mokwa, Minna-Zungeru-Tegina-Kontagora. ”Currently, the north-central region has the most deplorable roads and highways in the country. ”These deplorable roads have brought severe hardship on the people and lost lives and property through preventable road traffic crashes. ”We call on President Bola Tinubu to intervene and ensure the rehabilitation of these roads because good roads are vital enablers of development,” he said. The chairman also called on governors of states within the region to reconstruct the dilapidated roads and seek refunds from the federal government. ”Though these are largely federal roads, they are located within states, and the beneficiaries are the people of these states. ”So we call on state governments to reconstruct these roads and seek refunds from the federal government,” he added. (NAN
The central parity rate of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, strengthened 160 pips to 7.087 against the dollar on Wednesday.This is according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.In China’s spot foreigners exchange market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by two per cent from the central parity rate each trading day.
The central parity rate of the yuan against the dollar is based on a weighted average of prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank market each business day. (Xinhua/NAN)
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